Marketing Roadmaps

Marketing

Announcing The Revenue Roundtable

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A few weeks, Jim Logan asked if I would be interested in joining with him and a few others on a new group blog called The Revenue Roundtable. After a few weeks of round robin e-mails, telephone calls and a lot of work on Jim’s part (thanks Jim), the Roundtable launched yesterday.

The Roundtable bloggers are Jim Logan, Michael McLaughlin, Jill Konrath, Brian Carroll, Kevin Stirtz and me. Our backgrounds in sales, marketing, business develoment and small business management are different, but we all share a results-oriented approach to business problems, so you can expect a practical, goal-oriented Roundtable. I’ll keep my philosophical musings and fake blog rants on the Roadmap 🙂

From the introductory post:

"We’ve joined together as a team to focus on a single objective: helping you grow a profitable business—while maintaining your sanity. Our panel of experts will help you clear the path to prosperity by sharing winning strategies for building a business, and by pointing out the inevitable traps you’ll encounter along the way.

The Revenue Roundtable team’s saying is “Be practical, or be quiet.” So, head off to academia if you want to read jargon-laden management theory. Stick with us if you want specific advice on marketing strategy, lead generation, managing a complex sale, and expanding your business with your existing customers. And that’s just the start.

The team will write on one topic each week so you’ll get an in-depth view of an issue. And, we want your comments, suggestions and participation so we can tailor the blog’s content to match what you ask for.

Come back often. Let the Revenue Roundtable be your Swiss army knife for growing your business."

Check it out — the first week’s topic is Customers!

Resources on Blogging

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Here are some good resources on blogging, whether you are a long-time blogger or brand new to the form. I compiled this list as a handout for a presentation on (surprise) blogging for business, and decided it was a good entry for the Roadmap.

Overviews:

BusinessWeek’s May 2 cover story on blogging

Wayne Hurlbert’s chapter from the upcoming book 100 Bloggers offers a nice, simple introduction to "citizen publishing." 

Gapingvoid –   The Porous Membrane: Why Corporate Blogging Works

Excellent summary post from Contentious: What’s a Blog. Bag the Stereotypes.

Marketing Watchdog Journal, Is a Blog Right for Your Business?

Jim Logan’s great series on Inside Baseball: Business Blogs. The easiest way to find the whole series is go to Jim’s site and select the “Inside Baseball” category.

Practical/How-to:

How to get into blogs

"How to write killerblog posts and more compelling comments" by BL Ochman

Some tips from Marketing Roadmaps on using comments and trackbacks

From Business Week’s Blogspotting, a link to a good definition of trackbacks from the Movable Type site

From Blog Business World, Blogs:Theme relevant content and links

Recent examples of marketing blogs:

From John Wagner — all about qtags

From NevOn, an update on the GM blogs

From Marketing Roadmaps, two recent posts about various types of marketing blogs here and here

Blogging backlash??

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With all the recent hype about blogging, we are definitely going to see a spate of corporate blogs over the next few months. As well as negative commentary when blogging isn’t as “easy” as it seemed.

Not surprisingly, some will be in it for the quick hit, and be surprised: blogging takes effort and commitment to do well. Like anything worth doing, blogging takes time. 

Those in it for the quick hit will fade fast. Those who “get it” and are willing to invest in the medium will achieve the long term results.

And, it is worth repeating: a blog has to make sense in the context of the marketing plan, with clear objectives and desired results. From the corporate perspective, that is what makes the investment worthwhile.

Opinions well worth reading on this topic:

Gapingvoid: Blog as if your life depended on it (for the next three months anyway)

Micro Persuasion: Let the blog bashing begin (and be sure to read the comments)

Where the Roadmap is taking me

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Just a few places where the Roadmap is taking me.

Next week, I will be at  Camp WorldWIT: Women in the Lead from May 19-22, speaking on a marketing panel, "First to Market: Make Your Name Hit and Stick," Friday, May 20 from 2 – 3:15pm.

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In late July, I will be at the blogher conference in Santa Clara. I am very excited to be a panelist on the Blogging for Business panel (Saturday July 30 at 2:30pm)

Setting expectations

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A post by Elisa Camahort over at the Worker Bees Blog: Is your blog your office? Or a quantifiable marketing tool? reminded me of some conversations I had a few weeks ago (and have blogged here more than once) about the role of the blog in the marketing plan. Should you do a blog for brand awareness? Or lead generation? Or crisis communications? Or …..??

Elisa makes some excellent points in her post, not the least of which is:

"And as business people it is incumbent upon us to think about our expectations before we implement something."

That for me is the key. Blogs can serve many purposes in a business, internally and externally. But, as with any tool we choose to use in our business, we must be certain to set the proper expectations AND develop/use the tool properly to meet those expectations.

A weblog created to generate leads should be very different than one designed for brand awareness. Sure, your brand awareness blog will likely generate some leads for your business, but if you have high expectations of lots of inquiries resulting from your blog, you had better be posting content and information that drives your prospect to respond.

Just like with any other marketing tool. If you forget the call to action, whether it is a direct mail piece or a weblog entry, the phone is not likely to ring.